Leadership in the Age of Attention
It has always been conferred, not possessed. What changed is the machinery behind it.
Consumers think they choose products. Sociology, neuroscience and market data suggest otherwise. What they choose is a place in the social order.
- Society
- 5 min read
Incentives behind the attention economy
How digital media shifted from informing audiences to optimizing attention, and what that means for public knowledge and cultural value.
The Sincerity Industry
For a decade, brands demonstrated their values. Then the internet made verification cheap, trust expensive and sincerity hard to distinguish.
You Are What You Buy. Apparently.
Sociology spent a century explaining how consumer objects carry social meaning. The market spent the same century charging for it.
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Our Newsroom
A weekly newsletter of ideas and observations about consumer behaviour, brands, commerce and society. Some ideas explain a market. Others explain people.
The subjects may be commercial, cultural, economic or social. What connects them is less the category than the question behind them: what does this tell us about how people and organisations actually behave?
For readers interested in what is changing, why it is happening and what it means.
Society and Culture
View all →
Leadership in the Age of Attention
It has always been conferred, not possessed. What changed is the machinery behind it.
Incentives behind the attention economy
How digital media shifted from informing audiences to optimizing attention, and what that means for public knowledge and cultural value.
The Sincerity Industry
For a decade, brands demonstrated their values. Then the internet made verification cheap, trust expensive and sincerity hard to distinguish.
Commerce
View all →
Leadership in the Age of Attention
It has always been conferred, not possessed. What changed is the machinery behind it.
Incentives behind the attention economy
How digital media shifted from informing audiences to optimizing attention, and what that means for public knowledge and cultural value.
The Sincerity Industry
For a decade, brands demonstrated their values. Then the internet made verification cheap, trust expensive and sincerity hard to distinguish.
Communication
View all →
Leadership in the Age of Attention
It has always been conferred, not possessed. What changed is the machinery behind it.
Incentives behind the attention economy
How digital media shifted from informing audiences to optimizing attention, and what that means for public knowledge and cultural value.
The Sincerity Industry
For a decade, brands demonstrated their values. Then the internet made verification cheap, trust expensive and sincerity hard to distinguish.
Ideas
View all →
Leadership in the Age of Attention
It has always been conferred, not possessed. What changed is the machinery behind it.
Incentives behind the attention economy
How digital media shifted from informing audiences to optimizing attention, and what that means for public knowledge and cultural value.
The Sincerity Industry
For a decade, brands demonstrated their values. Then the internet made verification cheap, trust expensive and sincerity hard to distinguish.
Our Newsroom
A weekly newsletter of ideas and observations about consumer behaviour, brands, commerce and society. Some ideas explain a market. Others explain people.
The subjects may be commercial, cultural, economic or social. What connects them is less the category than the question behind them: what does this tell us about how people and organisations actually behave?
For readers interested in what is changing, why it is happening and what it means.
